French fries are one of the most popular convenience foods. A wide variety of French fried potato products are produced for both foodservice and home use. French fried potato strips, commonly referred to as "French fries" are served in most fast food restaurants. Most restaurants including large restaurants and consumers prefer to prepare the French fries from the frozen or chilled partially fried product (hereinafter par-fried) rather than go through the procedure of preparing French fries from raw potatoes. The par-fried potatoes are converted by the fast food restaurant or consumer into products such as French fried potatoes and the like.
The use of par-fried potato strips has been widely adopted in fast food restaurants because of the advantages they offer. A few of the recognized advantages associated with the use of chilled and frozen par-fried potato strips are, for example, users know the exact cost, the number of servings and the cost per portion. In addition, use of the frozen par-fried potatoes simplifies storage and inventory control, assures uniform quality from one season to another and reduces labor and preparation time for serving.
Commercial par-fried potato products are often shipped over long distances and generally must be stored for extended periods of time in the frozen state at about 0.degree. F. (-17.8.degree. C.) prior to ultimate purchase by the consumer. The potato strips are partially fried, then frozen or chilled and packaged. The packaged par-fries are shipped to restaurants, groceries, or ultimate consumers. During shipping and storage and until they are prepared, the products are refrigerated (i.e. held in a chilled state at cold storage temperatures of about 35.degree. F. to about 45.degree. F. (1 .7.degree. C. to about 7.2.degree. C.) in a frozen state at temperatures below 32.degree. F. (0.degree. C.). Prior to consumption, the chilled or frozen par-fried potato strips are reconstituted (e.g., by finish frying in oil, baking, microwaving) to produce ready-to-eat French fries.
Typically par-fried potato strips that are intended to be finished by cooking are relatively high in moisture content (e.g., about 60% to 70% moisture). When these par-fries are finished by baking in an oven, the bake time is relatively long (e.g., .gtoreq.10 minutes) and the finished fries are generally limp and soggy and do not have a crisp crust. To shorten the baking time and improve the surface texture, the par-fries can be fried to lower moisture contents (e.g. &lt;60% H.sub.2 O). However, this presents another problem in that when frozen par-fried potato strips that comprise less than about 53% moisture are stored at temperatures between about 0.degree. F. (-17.8.degree. C.) to about 30.degree. F. (-1.1.degree. C.), they tend to develop undesirable off-flavors during storage . The off-flavor may be described as "stale" and/or "cardboard". Although this development of off-flavor may not be noticeable when the par-fries are finished by a deep-fry process, it is very noticeable when the fries are oven-finished.
It is believed that the components responsible for the off-flavors volatilize during the frying process and that any off-flavors in the French fries are masked and/or diluted by the uptake of conditioned oil from the frying kettle. However, in the frozen par-fried potato strips that are finish cooked by an oven baking process, the stale or cardboard off-flavor is not voltailized, masked or diluted and therefore, the stale or cardboard flavor is quite noticeable.
Therefore, it can be seen that providing storage stable par-fries, comprising less than about 53% moisture, that retain good flavor when baked in an oven is a difficult task.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide frozen par-fried potato strips which are flavor stable during frozen storage.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide chilled or frozen par-fried potato strips which remain fresh tasting upon cooking, particularly oven baking, after frozen storage.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide frozen par-fried potato strips, which when finished, will have substantially the same lubriciousness and textural attributes of French fried potato strips that have been finished by deep frying.